Macramé or macramé is a form of textile-making using knotting rather than weaving or knitting. Its primary knots are the square knot and forms of hitching (full hitch and double half hitches). It has been used by sailors, especially in elaborate or ornamental knotting forms to decorate anything from knife handles to bottles to parts of ships.

Cavandoli macramé is a variety of macramé that is able to form geometric patterns and/or free-form patterns like weaving. The Cavandoli style is done mainly in a single knot, the double half hitch knot.Reverse half hitches are sometimes used to maintain balance when working left and right halves of a balanced piece.

Common materials used in macramé include cotton twine, hemp, leather or yarn. An essential feature of the threads used is a level of "give". Jewelry is often made in combination of both the knots and various beads (glass, wooden, etc.), pendants or shells. Sometimes 'found' focal points are used for necklaces, such as rings or gemstones either wire-wrapped to allow for securing or captured in a net-like array of intertwining overhand knots. Leather or fabric belts are another accessory often created via macramé techniques. Most friendship bracelets exchanged among schoolchildren and teens are created using this method as well.

For larger decorative pieces such as wall hangings or window coverings, a work of macramé might be started out on a wooden or metal dowel, allowing for a spread of dozens of cords that are easy to manipulate. For smaller projects, push-pin boards are available specifically for macramé, although a simple corkboard works adequately enough. Many craft stores offer beginners' kits, work boards, beads and materials ranging in price for the casual hobbyist or ambitious craftsperson. Vendors at theme parks, malls and other public places may sell such macramé jewelry or decoration as well.

History

Sailors made macramé objects at sea, and sold and bartered them when they landed, thus spreading the art to places like China and the New World. Macramé remained a popular pastime with 19th- century British and American seamen, who called it square knotting after the knot they most preferred in making hammocks, bell fringes, and belts.

Macramé reached its zenith in the Victorian era. Sylvia's Book of Macramé Lace, a favorite at that time, urged its readers "to work rich trimmings for black and coloured costumes, both for home wear, garden parties, seaside ramblings, and balls- fairylike adornments for household and underlinens ..." Few Victorian homes went unadorned.

While the craze for macramé waned in later years, it is now popular again, for making wall hangings, articles of clothing, bedspreads, small jean shorts, tablecloths, draperies, plant hangers and other furnishings.